Lidewij Niezink hosts the Empathy and Charter for
Compassion groups on Linkedin. Her Ph.D was in empathy and altruism. She
is a strategic advisor, trainer and innovator, and helps organizations,
groups and individuals to implement different aspects of empathic concern
into their professional as well as private lives.

How to build a culture of empathy? Stop looking for the qualities of
empathy and compassion outside of ourselves. We ALL possess these
qualities already (as research is showing us). Develop and make use of the
methods offered to cultivate empathy and compassion within ourselves
according to what speaks to our individual minds and hearts...

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I’ve researched the effects of empathy and perspective
taking on helping behavior and altruism. Perspective taking is an
important human capacity and the cognitive part of empathic concern.
When we try to imagine what others are thinking, feeling or
experiencing, we tend to ask ourselves: “how would I think/feel if I
were in the shoes of that other person?” In social psychology, this is
what we call an imagine-self perspective.

How can we make sure that the research on empathy and compassion
contributes to this changing world? By turning it into practice: Empathy
Circles combine research from different scientific disciplines into one
instrument which helps us to walk the talk.

1. Stop looking for/longing for/ (dis-)believing in the qualities of
empathy and compassion outside of ourselves. We ALL possess these
qualities already (as research is showing us). They are part of our
cognitive and emotional repertoire. There is nothing to expect out there,
it is inhere.

2. Develop and make use of the methods offered to cultivate empathy and
compassion within ourselves according to what speaks to our
individual minds and hearts.

3. Stop reading and writing and believing in only half of the human
make-up. Balance ego-focus and other-focus. Fearlessly Love others as
well as ourselves. As Loreal puts it: because we are worth it! ;-)

Considering Others in Need: On Altruism, Empathy
and Perspective TakingPhD Thesis
-
@Academia.edu"In the social psychological literature, empathy is seen
as an emotional response which evokes the altruistic motivation to help
others. One cognitive tool to increase the experience of empathy is
perspective taking. The current dissertation investigates how different
perspectives on the suffering of others, in combination with individual
differences and situational variations, lead to empathy and the
willingness to help those others. It also explores how empathy has been
measured within psychology in the past five decades.

On the basis of new data, a more optimal measurement of
the construct is proposed, by dividing the original measure into two new
scales: a sympathy and a tenderheartedness scale. These concepts are
subsequently distinguished from related concepts such as emotional
contagion, personal distress and compassion. Finally, a new model is
proposed in which altruistic behaviour is a consequence of several
choices one can make while perceiving the suffering of others."

Contents

Chapter 1 General Introduction

Egoistic Motivation

Empathy and Altruistic Motivation

Cognitive mechanism: Perspective Taking

Perspective Taking and Social Comparison

Different Perspectives for Friends and Family

Reconsidering the Concept of Empathy

Overview of the present dissertation

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter5

Chapter 2 When Your Suffering Becomes Mine: The
Influence of Social Comparison Orientation on Affect
Resulting in a Willingness to Help Others

Study 2.1

Study 2.2

General Discussion

Chapter 3 Psychological Motivators of Altruism Among
Kin and Friends

Study 3.1: University Student Sample

Study 3.2: Community Sample

General Discussion

Chapter 4 What Happened to Pandora’s Box:
Reconsidering the Measurement of State Empathy

Defining Empathy within Psychology

Review Factor Analysis

Nine Factor Analyses based on new data

The Discriminatory Power of the newly appeared scales
of Sympathy and Tenderheartedness

Conclusion

Chapter 5 Summary and Discussion

Summary

Relations with other Research

Altruism, from inclination to choice

Limitations and Ruminations

Conclusion

Reference

Notes:
why are academics always so concerned about suffering (person in need) and
the alleviation of suffering? They don't look much at the nature of
empathy and how it applies to the wider variety of human experiences.